Johannesburg - Kenneth Brown is retiring at the end of June after spending almost 20 years as the chief procurement officer at the National Treasury.
“It is true that he (Brown) is retiring at the end of June,” said a Treasury source, who declined to be named.
Brown’s name was last month thrust into the spotlight when the Sunday Times newspaper reported that members of the controversial Gupta family had offered deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas the position of finance minister in late November on the condition that he purge Treasury officials, including Brown, opposed to a proposed lucrative nuclear tender, estimated to be valued a whopping R1 trillion.
At this stage it is not clear who will replace Brown as chief procurement officer.
Treasury spokeswoman Phumza Macanda declined to comment on Brown’s imminent retirement.
The job offer was allegedly made to Jonas just before then Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene was sacked by President Jacob Zuma on December 9 to be briefly replaced by little-known lawmaker Des van Rooyen, who in turn following opposition to his appointment, was replaced by Pravin Gordhan – an appointment that was cheered by investors and markets.
According to the Sunday Times, the Guptas handed Jonas a list of officials to remove from the Treasury containing the names of Brown and three other veteran Treasury technocrats, namely director-general Fuzile Lungisa and deputies Ismail Momoniat and Andrew Donaldson.
These officials and Nene had to make way because they were known to oppose the nuclear tender, which they believed was unaffordable and would break the back of the fiscus if it went ahead. Shiva Uranium, which is owned by the Guptas and Zuma’s son Duduzani, stands to benefit from the tender.
Jonas confirmed last month that he was indeed offered the position of the finance minister by members of the Guptas, but declined the offer. But the family denied it offered Jonas the job. Jonas’s admission has raised fears that the South African state has been captured by private business interests and the country may be slipping into a kleptocracy.
Brown was appointed to lead the office of the chief procurement officer in 2013 by Gordhan during his first stint as the finance minister. He was tasked with radically modernising the government’s archaic procurement systems, rooting out tender corruption and generating savings of R25 billion a year from 2018 from the government’s annual procurement spending, which totals R500bn.
Ongoing inquiry
He will leave behind an ongoing investigation by the office of the chief procurement officer into tenders worth more than R10 million across the government. The investigation was launched in June and focused on state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
In February, the Treasury announced that the review was on all SOEs, such as the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Eskom, Transnet, SABC and SAA. The probe also covers coal contracts at Eskom. Eskom spends roughly R200bn a year procuring coal from mines to fire its power stations.
Before he sets off to his retirement, perhaps one of Brown’s last acts will be to table the much-awaited Public Sector Procurement Bill for public comment. It is due for release in the first half of this year and the broad thrust of the new legislation will be to regulate all aspects of state procurement, including tightening tendering rules and revising the preferential procurement policy.
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* Note: Subsequent to the publication of this article, the Treasury confirmed that Brown will remain with the institution. “Under Mr Brown’s leadership, the OCPO (office of the chief procurement officer) has made tremendous progress on these objectives to ensure that South Africa’s procurement system is one that is transparent and enables government to realise value for money,” the Treasury said.